A display device, such as a portable game device, a home-use game device, a personal digital assistant (PDA), and a personal computer, for displaying a character string is known.
As a display device described above, a known device applies restriction (Japanese hyphenation), when inserting line feed depending on the width of a character string display area, such that a character which is preferably not located at the top of a line is prevented from being located at the top of a line and a character which is preferably not located at the end of a line is prevented from being located at the end of a line. For example, a known device holds a character code of a character which is preferably not displayed at either the top or end of a line, and performs control such that a character identified by the character code is prevented from being displayed at the top or end of a line.
Also, another device known as the above-described display device creates, on a real time basis, an associated image associated with a character to be displayed based on the font data of the character, and displays the associated image in association with that character. For example, a known device creates a shadow of a character on a real time basis, and attaches the shadow to that character to display a shadowed character.
Further, still another device known as the above-described display device offers assistance to allow a user to preferably designate a part of a character string displayed on a screen. More specifically, a character string is analyzed based on a user's designated position in a character string display area and a character code of each character constituting a character string, so that the part which the user intends to designate is estimated and displayed in a discriminable manner.
With the display device which applies the above-described Japanese hyphenation, a character code of a character to enable prevention of the character from being displayed at the top or end of a line is required to be set in advance. Therefore, there may be a case in which Japanese hyphenation is subjected to restriction due to a character code system. For example, there may be a case in which Japanese hyphenation cannot be applied when a character in an unknown character code system is displayed.
In addition, as a display device which displays an associated image in association with a character, as described above, creates, on a real time basis, an associated image to be displayed in association with the character, the processing load of the device is not light.
Still further, as a display device which offers an assistance to enable designation of a part of a character string, as described above, analyzes the character string based on a character code, there may be a case in which the display device is subjected to restriction due to the character code system.
The present invention has been conceived in view of the above. A first object of the present invention is to provide a display device, a control method for the display device, and a information storage medium capable of preferable application of Japanese hyphenation while suppressing restriction due to a character code system.
A second object of the present invention is to provide a display device, a control method for the display device, and an information storage medium capable of displaying an associated image associated with a character while reducing the processing load.
Further, a third object of the present invention is to provide a display device, a control method for the display device, and an information storage medium capable of allowing a user to preferably designate a part of a character string while suppressing restriction due to a character code system.